Maybe my first blog should be more neutrally toned or even positive. But then again, the subject wouldn’t really be worthy of a blog. I’m going to talk about something that really bothers me. Something that, apparently everyone at Gallaudet University and anyone who’s ever been at Gallaudet University, knew but I didn’t.
Rat funerals.
No, I’m not that out of the loop. I’ve heard about “rat funerals” but I’ve always interpreted the term “rat” more loosely, as a somewhat more endearing term for the lowly class of freshmen. I’ve seen the plaques in the ground around campus. I’ve seen the dates on them. I’ve seen the names. I thought a “rat funeral” was some symbolic ritual that celebrated the end of the freshman year. What I didn’t know was that there are actual dead rats under these plaques, which are perhaps more aptly termed tombstones.
So someone explained that what really happens is that each incoming class of freshmen buys an actual real-life rat and takes care of it throughout their first year. By the end of the year, they engage in a ritualistic cleansing of suppressed anger inflicted by the similarly ritualistic upperclassmen practice of teasing the freshmen. The freshmen take out these feelings on the rat by physically torturing it until it dies. Methods of torture vary - from a simple beating to drowning.
Okay, I don’t like rats. I think they’re nasty creatures. I can’t stand their small beady eyes and their fat rubbery tails. I know they’re responsible for spreading disease and overall nastiness. I like nothing about them. I shudder when I see them cross the street at night or scurry from under my garbage can to that hole in the pavement. But they are living creatures. They live, breathe, and feel pain. Because of that, I don’t understand how could people care for a rat and then mercilessly kill it at the end of the year with no thought of its suffering? I just don’t get it.
No, this is not about me being a vegetarian. This is about compassion for other living creatures. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, even if the other’s a rat.
I guess I’ll never look at these plaques on the Gallaudet campus the same again. And maybe I should brush up on my Gallaudet lore some more.
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WOW…. You really ARE out of the loop, the tradition started with live rats but although I am not sure of the exact date I believe they stopped using “real” rats in the late 1980’s. I tried to find the exact date but wasnt able to do so perhaps someone else more fluent in Gallaudet History can shed the light on that.
So you dont have to worry NOT all of those tombstones cover real live rats and your in fact correct about your first premise the funerals are indeed a tradition to move forward and “bury their freshmen Year” etc etc.
Its a wonderful and “meaningful” tradition and anyone who has taken part in one can tell you its not so much about the rat as it is about tradition and the college experience.
I guess more than just one of us is out of the loop. Thank you for shedding some light on what a “rat funeral” is today.
Lolypup, thanks for your comment. I’m relieved to hear that the tradition doesn’t involve real rats now. I do wholly understand the underlying reason for the rat funeral, it being a traditional means of celebrating college and surviving the first year. Thank you for adding that.
Julie, I’m glad that you brought it up. I’ve been out of loop, too! All I heard that the “live” rats were banned in the late 1980’s due the issue of animal cruelty. Yes, all living creatures do have a feeling. They do feel the pain!!! That’s for sure!! During my preparatory year (1970’s), two pink-eyed white rats were squeezed before us and I was dismayed. I could imagine what they went through. I didn’t like it at all. I’m relieved that they don’t use live rats anymore. For the rat funeral history, you may contact Archives Dept.
I had never given much thought as to what a “rat funeral” was until I read this. I, like you, had assumed that term “rat” was symbolic of the freshman class, and “funeral” being the transition made to become a sophmore, boy was I mistaken! I guess I’m glad that I transferred in, and missed out on this morbid tradition.
To give you a bit of the Gallaudet tradition, having a rat funeral was to bring a closure to the prepRATory year. Gallaudet no longer has prepratory studies. Gallaudet had prepratory studies for many years, maybe as far back to its founding days. I believe it was discontinued in the early 1990’s. I don’t know when they started rat funerals. I think the tradition goes this way - freshmen have the Slab Day, in which they put in the “tombstone” where their rats were buried, then the sophmores have the Tree Day, when they plant a tree on campus, the juniors have the Banner Day with a banner of their class color/logo or whatever and they quickly and sleathly reveal their banner to the other classes on that day without letting others try to take it away from them, and finally the seniors have their graduation. I think in the last 25 years, they have added the Senior Trip, in which the destination is kept a secret among the seniors and the whole class have their “final” moments together usually during Spring Break. This is what I understood of the Gallaudet student rituals.
When I came to Gallaudet as a freshman in the mid 80’s, this whole ritual stuff was never fully explained to me or my fellow freshmen that didn’t go through prepratory studies. I remember that we were to try to disrupt the proceedings of the class behind us, which at times nearly went out of control. I don’t know the reason for trying to disrupt the proceeding. It may have been an attempt to replace a more appropriate ritual practice.
This is the synopsis that I can recall. Things may have changed since then. Now that there are no prepratory classes, I don’t know if it makes any sense for these old rituals to go on. From what my teachers told me in high school, there were other rituals that they went through in the 30’s and 40’s at Gallaudet that are no longer in practice nowadays. Perhaps the Gallaudet Archives would have more information on Gallaudet rituals.
As for using live rats, the practice was supposed to have stopped in the early 80’s. Prepratory students were told to use stuffed rats or whatever symbolized the rats. But you know how it can be for some people who feel they have to stick to the old way - using live rats. I myself was never involved with the rat funeral proceeding. But I have heard that some hid real dead rats underneath stuffed ones in a coffin.
What a weird tradition. But then are traditions supposed to be a bit weird?
My sister, being 10 years older than me, went to Gallaudet in the 1980’s and I remember looking through her yearbook where I found a page
on a rat funeral. I wasn’t happy upon seeing
real dead rats.
It is a relief to know that the practice of killing rats is now obsolete. I can’t help but feel the pain of any living creatures being killed.
Gallaudet alumnus, thank you for providing us with a more thorough history of the rat funeral. I found it interesting, despite my persistent discomfort with the fact that real rats were killed.
And, yes! Traditions always seem to be a bit weird. They start off with a genuine reason and as time goes by, that reason may get somewhat obscured and the practice may change a bit until the tradition is some crazy convoluted event. Take Halloween for example…
i think Prep (NWC campus) and pep studies ended in 95 or 96..
I didn’t partake in the freshmen rituals including shaving heads. I think my class (99) is the last class to have a formal recognition before it was banned altogether.
I remember around then “sisterhood” and “brotherhood” to greek organizations popped up around then and I recall seeing one (i forget the name) group where the girls bapitised themselves in that blue dyed fountain pool by the hanson plaza cafeteria. ick.
Man, that’s crazy. I wonder what other traditions were banished.
Julie,
I don’t know about beating a rat to death, but I can assure you that during my time and a few years before (hippy/flower power years) we used either cholform or ether gas–an elaborately yet primitive set up, using the stuff we “borrowed” (without asking for a permission, of course) from the chemical department. A small bottle of either choloform or ether gas with a sealed top, tubing up and down into another sealed lid screwed tightly onto a large and shallow glass container where a couple of rats happily munched and soon they became woozy and fell asleep into an eternal dreamland.
I’m telling you without a doubt that the class of 1977 conducted the BEST EVER Rat Funeral!!! We had two young gents whose hairstyles were long and “afro” actually dressed like real Catholic bishops and the young ladies behind the “bishops” donned black dresses and black veils … (LOL!)
who cares? why r u so concerned abt gally and rats and all of that? all of that r old news.. we use fake rats nowadays.. so move on and find other better news to talk about.. like pluto or pres bush crusades..
Urucurn, were you wearing a pink shirt on the Hill in DC last night?
This wasn’t old news to me. It felt worthy of a blog. If you don’t find the topic interesting enough, that’s fine with me. It’s completely your choice. If you have better news to talk about, I’d recommend you submit a guest blog to DeafDC.
Ahhh it’s nice knowing that animal cruelty has been added to a list of names describing Galludet students. I really wonder how PETA would respond to that.
This is totally lame!
So animal rights law is more important than disability laws? No wonder the highly educated liberals a Harvard Law school endowned a “PETA” chair.
Where was it said that animal rights were more important than disabilitiy laws? Where did disability laws come from?
While I’m disturbed by the fact that some people partook in this practice, I don’t dare assume that all Gallaudetians were involved. Thus I wouldn’t go so far as to say that all Gallaudet students are guilty of animal cruelty. And as others have commented on this blog, it appears that real rats are no longer used.
Your heart is in the right place but your blog isn’t. It wouldn’t have happened with fifteen minutes’ research. Just go to the Archives on campus and you’d know all this, and more.
The rat funeral indeed was a celebration of the completition of a prepaRATory year and, hopefully, moving on to become bonafide college students. Only about half of them did and those who did met another since banned ritual–Freshman hazing at the start of the fall semester.
The senior field trip mentioned in an earlier entry was known as “Sneak Day”.
Taken from Wikipedia:
“According to the New York Times, “[t]he FBI has found that a history of cruelty to animals is one of the traits that regularly appears in its computer records of serial rapists and murderers, and the standard diagnostic and treatment manual for psychiatric and emotional disorders lists cruelty to animals a diagnostic criterion for conduct disorders. [1] “A survey of psychiatric patients who had repeatedly tortured dogs and cats found all of them had high levels of aggression toward people as well…”
Apparently it wasn’t a big deal on campus back then, which is kinda scary. I’m glad it stopped.
At the same time, it makes me wonder what traditions we’ll see as barbaric and inhumane 20 years from now.
Quote At the same time, it makes me wonder what traditions we’ll see as barbaric and inhumane 20 years from now. Unquote
Perhaps the character assassinations of deaf people we are seeing on the blogs these days????
WOW WELL SAID!!! ESP FOR DEAFDC blogs! cannot stand them, very negative and sad tho they write well.. but thats all they can do.
On traditions–here’s what I pulled out from Harvard magazine that merits comment.
“Harvard tradition cannot be greater than ordinary Harvard students. Alumni celebrate tradition, even endow it. But it is students who engage tradition…It is students who have the power to simply ignore what no longer seems relevant.”
Here’s another from Yale, “Philosopher George Pierson said that, ‘Yale is at once a tradition, a company of scholars, a society of friends.’ Now, after three hundred years of growth and change, traditions both silly and serious help create this inspiring community of scholars and friends.”
I know the bison song is one of Gallaudet’s most beautiful and time-honored traditions. One of the few that alumni and students both enjoy. Many universities have banned some long-standing traditions that inflicted harm on students’ well being. Texas A&M’s famous 90-year bonfire tradtion was banned when it resulted several deaths from the collapse due to poor structural issues. Perhaps certain traditions at Gallaudet could use a makeover or revive some old forgotten but not harmful traditions.